Sunday

George M Marsden "Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism"

A fundamentalist is an evangelical who is mad about something. That seems simple and is fairly accurate. ... A more precise statement of the same point is that an American fundamentalist is an evangelical who is militatnt in opposition to liberal theology in the churches or to changes in cultural values or mores, such as those associated with "secular humanism". In either the long or the short definitions, fundamentalists are a subtype of evangelicals and militancy is crucial to their outlook. Fundamentalists are not just religious conservatives, they are conservatives who are willing to take a stand and to fight. This definition would be fairly clear if we knew exactly wha an evangelical is. However our task is made more difficult because neither fundamentalism nor evangelicalism is a clearly defined religious organization with a membership list. Rather, both evanglicalism and fundamentalism are religious movements. Each of these movements, though only informally organized, is an identifiable set of groups and individuals with some common history and traits. So we may talk about each movement as a whole, as when we say fundamentalists are militant. At the same time, it is just as true that each of these movements is a coalition of submovements, which are sometimes strikingly diverse and do not always get along. pp.1 - 2

All share to some dgree the common experience of being outsiders to the most sophisticated modern culture. p. 6